The Shadow of the Tower

The Shadow of the Tower is a historical drama that was broadcast on BBC2 in 1972. It was a prequel to the earlier serials The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R. Consisting of thirteen episodes, it focused on the reign of Henry VII of England and the creation of the Tudor dynasty.

James Maxwell was probably far more accomplished as a theatre director than an actor, and his casting here as the first English Tudor monarch, King Henry VII, is probably the source of this drama's struggles. That king had a reputation for deviousness and ruthlessness that this performance seems to overly sanitise; indeed the whole thing lacks the potency and vibrancy of it's chronological successor "Henry VIII and his Six Wives" (1970). It is spread across 13 fifty minute episodes - some based on fact: his defeat of Richard III; accession; marriage to Edward IV's daughter - Elizabeth of York; Perkin Warbeck and his rebellions etc. and some based on potential scenarios that he may have faced during his reign - the best probably being an encounter with Peter Jeffrey as "The Prisoner", a man accused of heretical behaviour because he happens to believe that Jesus is not best represented to the people by a corrupt and venal Church. There is a decent cast drawn from English theatre circles with Norma West appearing, sparingly, as his wife, but the dialogue is overly verbose; the studio scenery implies some of the dinginess of their actual existence but at the same time leaves us looking at something over staged and really pretty unrealistic (and poorly lit) most of the time. The fact that many of the episodes were directed by different people also doesn't help the continuing, pretty tame, narrative of this fascinatingly shrewd individual from history. Maybe had it just condensed the reign into six episodes under the hand of one director then it would have improved significantly? Rarely available nowadays - probably far too expensive to repeat, but it is still very much worth watching despite it's flaws.